With hundreds of TV channels and scheduled programs from which to choose, together with personal video recorder (PVR)-recorded shows, pay-per-view (PPV), video-on-demand (VOD) and other content, TV viewers and other content users are faced with a nearly overwhelming choice of entertainment and other content options.
In response, various electronic or interactive programming guide (EPG/IPG) systems have been proposed or developed to enhance TV viewers' ability to navigate through and select programming. Examples of such systems are set forth in the following U.S. and foreign patent documents, among others, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference as if set forth in their entirety here:                U.S. Pat. No. 6,177,931 Alexander et al.        U.S. Pat. No. 6,163,316 Killian        U.S. Pat. No. 6,005,597 Barrett et al.        WO 0049801A1 Yuen et al.        WO 0033224A1 Yuen        
Many such systems, including those disclosed in the listed documents, use profiling processes to develop information about viewers and thereby provide content ratings or recommendations. Typical profiling processes, however, are relatively complex, and require significant computational resources. This, in turn, necessitates complex and expensive set-top box (STB) hardware.
It is therefore desirable to provide methods and systems that enable compact implementations of profiling and other functions on limited-resource platforms such as set-top boxes (STBs) and the like.
It is also desirable to employ methods and systems that enable the collection of information for collaborative filtering and other legitimate purposes, utilizing compact implementations of profiling and other functions, on limited-resource platforms such as set-top boxes (STBs) and the like, to generate multi-dimensional user profiles that avoid the transmission or storage of private, identifiable, personal information.